#teachingmozambique

"What are you doing here?" This is one of the questions foreigners and Mozambicans alike are always asking me. There are two ways I can interpret this question: 1. "Why the heck did you leave your family, friends, and America to come and live in Mozambique?" or 2. "What is your occupation?". I usually choose to use the latter interpretation as there are days even I can't respond to the former. This is the first part of the conversation that normally follows: "I am a math and chemistry teacher at a secondary school." "At an international school in Maputo?" "No, at a public school north and inland from Maxixie, Inhambane." Then they give me a slightly disbelieving look and ask "Way out there in the mato?" ("Mato" roughly translated means "middle of nowhere"). The truth about my occupation is a bit more complicated than just being a teacher. Being an education volunteer for the Peace Corps means that I am paired with a secondary school and am expected to both teach and be used as a resource. I am encouraged to get involved in the community through what Peace Corps calls Secondary Projects. These can be anything from building something like a water well, a bridge, or, as in my case, a library. It could also mean I do something with members from my community, such as Redish, basically Peace Corps Mozambique's version of brownies, Juntos, an older, co-ed version on Redish, or coach a sports team. Along with 24 hours of 8th and 9th grade math and chemistry classes every week, I co-coach a girls soccer team, am my school's science fair coordinator, have started a grassroots soccer program, and have been tasked with finding the funds to build my school a library. The Reality of the Mozambican Student (As seen by the "Strange White Person") I recently read an article from bbc (http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32397212) that stated that there is a century-wide gap in education between the developing world and the developed world. Having spent the past nine months living and working as a teacher in rural Mozambique, a developing country listed as one of the poorest countries in the world by the Word Bank, I can really see the differences. Imagine living in America back befoe WWI, when the population was a mere 92,000,000 people and most lived east of Indiana. Citizens are just paying their first income tax per the 16th amendment of the Constitution and thousands of veterans and their families commemorate the 50th aniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg at the site of the Gettysburg address. The minimum wage has just been raised from about $2.50 to $5 for an 8 hour day and the first telephone conversation between New York and San Francisco is big news. Now imagine going to a school in a rural quasi-village during that time, only with a few key differences. The first difference is cell phones, some of which can access the internet, and TV that clearly shows the disparity between your reality and that of the developed world. Add in the fact that unike the U.S. where most people immigrated from other countries, most families here have lived in the sourrounding area for what seems like their whole family history and the idea that there are different cultures, lifestyles, languages, and perspectives is mind boggling. My secondary school students have asked me questions such as "Where in Mozambique is America?" and "Why did the scientists develop and give Ebola to Africa?". Concepts such as the cell, a virus, bacteria, an area in the world that hasn't even heard of their native language of Xitswa are all ludicrous. Or in my specific case, a 24 year-old unmarried woman with no kids???? Crazy! When I brought up the concept of negative numbers in my math classes, I could all but see their minds exploding. Lets not even talk about when I introduced the the idea of atoms, tiny, microscopic balls made up of positive and negative charges ("teacher, what is a magnet?") to my chemistry students. I was a recent university graduate with a double degree in Biology and Spanish, and for all intents and purposes had no teacher training. After only 10 weeks of Mozambican cultural/Portuguese language training I was dropped into this environment, alone, and expected to teach 24 hours of math and chemistry (4 hours more than full time in one disipline) in portuguese, working within a completely unknown system, making the equivalent of $6 a day. I have since lived one day to the next often feeling the most horrible frustration and despair one moment then having the most incredible sensation of awe and sense of accomplishment the next. I now have a very intimate understanding of the turn-of-phrase "emotional whiplash". Most of what I have learned about the education system I have learned from one of my collegues and the conversation usuallly starts with the question "Why haven't you done/turned in (insert previously unheard-of task)? It was due yesturday." Which is rather frustrating considering I normally have no idea what they are talking about and over half of my colleagues barely turn anything in, let alone turn anything in on time.  For example, This past Tuesday I was told I had parent-teacher meetings and to prepare, I had to fill out a notebook for each of my 53 homeroom students with every grade they received for each of the twelve disciplines that lead up to their final trimester grade by friday. And I can't even meet with the parents of my students because most of the parents only speak Xitswa and I only know several key phrases the girls on my soccer team and my market lady friends have taught me. The basics of the system, that I had learned before, during my cultural training, have also been difficult to adjust to. For example, in the U.S., where teachers have their own room often with seating charts for each class and where a chemistry teacher can put up a periodic table and a math teacher can hang tables and rules for numbers they want their students to see every day, Mozambique has too many students and too few schools/classrooms so it is the teacher who switches rooms. Another difference is each classroom (at least in my school) has on average, 55 students of all different ages (my eighth graders are anywhere from 14 to 20) with at least 2 sometimes 3 students to one desk, if they are lucky enough to have desks. My two chemistry classes are held in very basic rooms consisting only of cement walls, a roof and a chalk board. There are no window panes or doors and all of my students sit on the cold, hard cement floors for six hours a day. I began teaching chemistry a third of the way into the school year and during my first class when I asked for questions at the end of the period, one of my students actually raised his hand. Normally, my students never ask questions. I'm not sure if that is just how they were taught (never to question the teacher) or if maybe they are embarrassed and don't want to ask in front of the class (most questions I now get asked are when I am walking around the room while my students do practice problems and usually it is when only I can hear). Either way I was slightly surprised with the raised hand. When I called on him to ask his question he said "Teacher, do you hit?" I was taken aback that someone could even wonder that but unfortunately, this physical abuse, as well as emtional abuse, does happen within and outside the classroom. Here in Cambine, it is not as common but it does happen. I have never seen or heard of a student being beaten but there have been several instances that have completely shocked me. The first instance was suposidly a deterrent for arriving late after the national hymn, which the whole grade is supposed to sing together before the school day is allowed to start. I was entereing my first class and I heard the "WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!" of a stick hitting something fleshy. I turned around and saw a gathering of about 20 students around one of my colleagues. One of the students would hold out their arm and the teacher would hit it with a stick three times, leaving whelts then move onto the next student. Needless to say I was shocked speechless but unless I wanted to make enemies, there was nothing I could say or do at the time. (currently, another couple of teachers and I are trying to convince the administration to pass a rule that for arriving late, students need to pick up trash during their break.) Luckily, this punishment has only happened twice since I have been here. Like in any developing, and even many developed countries, Mozambique faces a huge problem with corruption that can be clearly seen in the school system. Schools recieve money based on the number of students who pass. Logically, it is the schools who have fewer students passing that need the funding the most and the only way they recieve this money is by changing student grades. I have also heard of instances both in other schools and in my school (luckily this happened last year, before I arrived) of teachers blackmailing students to sleep with them and students bribing teachers with their bodies. In Cambine, I have one of the best head directors of all of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers. Once my predecessor brought the issue to him, the teacher in question was promptly sent packing. I have heard of other head driectors shoving the problem "under the rug" and ignoring it. Or telling the teacher to leave the one specific student, who complained, alone which doesn't do anything to protect the other students. Mozambique also recieves funds for education based on how many teachers they produce. This is a great concept if the teachers are truely qualified. As it is, if a student graduates the 10th grade with passing gardes, they can be trained to be a primary school teacher for a year or two, then they are sent off to teach children while finishing their own secondary school education. Luckily the secondary school teachers are usually more prepared to teach (many have been to university), however the subject they were taught to teach, the subject they are most qualified to teach, is often not the subject they end up teaching. ****As I reread what I have written, I realize that I have painted a somewhat negative picture of both the Mozambican education system and, to some degree, my school. I want to be clear on something. Mozambique is in a state of rapid development. I have highlighted the problems because that is what stands out to me as the "Strange White Person" but please keep in mind that the majority of the people I work with are educated and are trying to implement good change. I am amazed on a daily basis by the inteligence of both my colleagues and students. I am also humbled by their ability to accept and help someone they often don't understand and probably think of as incredibly weird. Also, in my experience, their capacity to love and forgive is unparrellelled. Although I have seen things and been in situations that I am incredibly uncomfortable with, and there are many things I wish I could change, I am currently content to be an instrument of change, a window into another culture and perspective, and I am proud to be a part of this people even if it is only for two years.****